


The Telvanni Guide to Illusion

by Zalphon



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 08:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalphon/pseuds/Zalphon
Summary: A brief understanding of Illusion magic written by a Telvanni Spellwright.





	The Telvanni Guide to Illusion

**The Telvanni Guide to Illusion**

_By Sakiran Maesa, Spellwright of House Telvanni_

 

My patience has once again been tested by one of my fetchlings; I suppose they do have names, but they are of little use for more than fetching the most basic of things given the events that transpired today. I gave one of the retainers enough gold to collect for me my personal items (such as Sload Soap and Telvanni Bug Musk) and told him that if he was timely in the matter that I would allow him to keep the change from the transactions. I should have known that sending someone of his stature to do a job like this would result in failure, but yet I did it anyways; I can not blame him for disappointing me any more than I can blame a fish for not climbing a tree. One should know better than to send a retainer to do a job that even a simpleton can do.

 

My residence is within one of the smaller towers of Sadrith Mora. The marketplace is grand and alive with many exotic delights and foreign goods befitting of the eccentric nature of many of the members of my House, and equally so, the merchants are quite savvy as to the tricks of the amateur illusionist seeking to charm them. The retainer is now being sold off to a club in Suran and I only hope that the merchant (who is a personal friend of mine) can accept my apologies for this fool’s rude behavior, but it has become clear to me that there is a gross misunderstanding of the field of Illusion amongst those aspiring to become Telvanni. I plan to dispel these illusions and I encourage you to read carefully.

 

Illusion is perhaps the most difficult school for the Telvanni, because it is not about understanding the metaphysics of reality or having the will to shape it. The school of Illusion is about something infinitely more complicated. It is about understanding your fellow man (or mer). You see, Illusion magic operates by creating false stimuli at the smallest level within the brains of the subject, but unlike other (purer) forms of magic, it also requires a level of guile that is typically lost by my House.

 

We are not like the other houses in that we hide behind honeyed words and sweet lies; the Telvanni way is to openly announce your will and then to enact it, because to do otherwise is a sign of weakness. That is why there is no reason to suspect a Telvanni of lying, because we do not need to lie. If we tell you that we are going to kill you, it is because we will. If we tell you that we are going to take your house, your home, and everything you love, it is because we will. There is no need to lie to you, because you’re not worth lying to. It’s much easier to just tell you the truth, because we have nothing to fear from you. That is why Illusion is so frequently forsaken amongst my house; it is the art of liars and deceivers and we are speakers of truths, no matter how uncomfortable they may be.

 

Equally so, it requires a level of empathy that is often lost in the transition from aspirant to Telvanni. I myself once had a great love for my fellow man and sought to proliferate knowledge to such an extent that I worked to improve the degree of literacy amongst the civilized Tamrielic races, but ultimately, I have come to realize that I could devote my entire life to teaching ants how to read and the results would ultimately be the same. We are not an empathetic people, because it is hard to empathize with something so infinitely beneath you. I do not mean that to offend you, but it is simply a statement of fact.

  


Again, the school of Illusion is difficult for us, because we feel no need to hide from you. But I do believe in offering the tools to reach greater power for those who seek it, so I will explain just what Illusion magic is, even if it is not a pure form of magic like you’ll see with other schools.

  


Illusion is divided into two primary sub-schools: Mental and Shadow

  


It should be noted that this divide is not in the way the magic works, but in the produced effects. All Illusion magic requires the creation of false stimuli, but the types of false stimuli differ. Mental magic tends to deal more heavily with emotional stimuli, whereas Shadow magic tends to deal with aural, ocular, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic stimuli.

  


The Retainer sought to charm my friend with a spell I taught him some time ago. The way a spell such as charm works is that it creates an instant feeling of trust between the caster and the subject and it is actually incredibly effective in most cases, but those who are trained to resist it can sense that they’ve been charmed. Every merchant in Sadrith Mora and really any merchant with any serious ambition in Telvanni territory is trained to resist it and it is seldom, if ever, met with those same feelings of trust when they can tell they’ve been charmed. That is why this retainer failed in his (foolish) plan to charm my friend, because unlike the retainer, my friend is not an idiot and doesn’t do things (like become a merchant in the Council Seat of the Telvanni) without thinking them through (learning to tell when he’s been charmed).

  


One can be trained to detect all kinds of false emotional stimuli created by Illusion magic, but a true master of resisting Mind effects can detect the transcendental failings of it. There are subtle signs of being charmed, demoralized, or otherwise affected by an Illusion effect that only someone incredibly well-trained can detect in themselves (even if they’ve not been trained for that specific effect). It’s not the intensity of it, so much as the purity. I have felt intense trust before, but it’s never been without some sliver of doubt as well. There is no natural feeling of absolute fear or absolute rage or anything of the sort; it can feel absolute, but it can not be absolute in nature. If you are completely and utterly filled with one, singular emotion—you are under the effect of a spell. And that can be very hard to tell, especially when you are emotionally charged and therefore unable to think clearly, but the ability to differentiate between natural emotion and magical emotion can be the one that saves your life; I encourage any serious aspirant to seek training at the hands of a Mouth (Master Aryon’s is actually quite skilled in this) in exchange for services. It will save your life and I say that from experience.

  


Now we come upon what Illusion is actually known and named for. The Shadow Sub-School. There is a great deal of confusion about this school who think that the only effects produced by it are that of Chameleon and Invisibility, but that is actually quite untrue. There are a plethora of effects produced in this school that make it quite useful, even if its parent school is a lesser school.

  


To understand it though, you must first understand your five senses and how each of them factor in to paint a picture of your surroundings. You may think that sight alone is all that you need to have an understanding, but that is incorrect. Sight provides a canvas for the painting, but the paint on that canvas is brushed on by the sounds you hear, the way it feels, even the smells and taste. One can not tell me that looking at a portrait of the Foyada Mamaea is the same as actually walking it. There is an entire world of experience that is being missed by only looking at the portrait and that is what needs to be understand by any illusionist specializing in the Shadow sub-school.

  


So often I will find retainers practicing their “invisibility” within my tower and trying to sneak around, but their footsteps betray them. They do not muffle them in the slightest either magically or otherwise; they move with the grace of wild guar and many of them are so slathered in Bug Musk that they smell like them too. Understand this: your illusions are only as good as your worst sense. If you can not mask all five senses from being noticed, then you may as well not mask any, because you will be found and you will be killed. The only illusionist who survives is the one you never knew was there and that illusionist is not the one who drags his guarhide-soled shoes across my floors or the one who bathes in Bug Musk.

  


And you may wonder how your shadows seem to follow you in certain cases (such as Invisibility) when these effects are not actually affecting you, but those around you. That is because it creates a magical aura of false stimuli that clings to you and radiates from you. Contrary to the Bent Light theory of the Mages’ Guild, Shadow-type illusion spells do not bend light around you; they are purely the result of false stimuli or masked stimuli. You may doubt the truth behind my words, but I beseech you to perform an experiment if you do doubt me. Take two equally gifted pupils with but one difference: social grace. Find a brilliant pupil who is blessed with intellect and personality in accord and one who is blessed only with intellect and you will find the former to be the better of the Illusionists, because his understanding of people is greater.

  


**Note From The Author:**

  


I hope that the two of you who were mentioned in this text find a copy, lest I need to resolve this issue more directly.

 

-Lady Sakiran


End file.
